Langerweher stoneware
Langerweher stoneware is a type of ceramic product that was produced in the Rhineland pottery town of Langerwehe in the late Middle Ages and modern times . The range of stoneware vessels manufactured here primarily includes simple utensils and kitchen utensils as well as large storage vessels, milk satellites and water pipes. The main production phase was in the 18th and 19th centuries. Handcrafted stoneware of supraregional importance, as it is known from Cologne , Raeren or Siegburg , was not made in Langerwehe.
Historical development
In Langerwehe ceramics production has been since the 11th / 12th. Century attested. Near the place are low-iron, refractory clays that burn to a gray shard . The clay deposits were located east of Langerwehe, between Langerwehe and Weisweiler in the corridors "Am Hausbusch" and "Am Potzefeld", where the field name "Potzefeld" still refers to the opencast mining of the clay. Etymologically, "Potze" is derived from the Latin putus (= pit). The densely wooded Eifel ensured the supply of firewood.
The first written mention of Langerweh ceramics production comes from 1324. The vessels initially made in the Rymelsberg district are similar to the Pingsdorf goods . The range of shapes includes ball pots and simple utensils. From the 14th century, Langerweher potters were able to produce stoneware. The stoneware potters and their workshops settled in their own settlement between Langerwehe and the clay deposits. Here, too, the current name “Uhlhaus” for that part of the village still points to the pottery tradition. The name "Uhl" is derived from the Latin expression olla (= pot). During the late 14th and early 15th centuries, Langerwehe developed an important export trade in stoneware vessels. The economic success of Langerwehes was favored by its location on the old long-distance trade route Frankfurt-Aachen-Rotterdam. The products came from here to France, today's Benelux countries and Great Britain. The main hub for Langerweh stoneware was the Hanseatic city of Cologne . However, the range of shapes has always been limited to simple utility ceramics.
It is possible that the destruction of Langerwehe in 1543 by the imperial troop associations of Charles V as a result of the Third War of the Geldr Succession and further devastation in the Truchsessian War in 1586 prevented the development of a high-quality art pottery in the Renaissance style, as was the case in other Rhenish pottery centers such as Raeren or Siegburg.
On April 28, 1706, Johann Wilhelm von Jülich-Kleve-Berg gave the Langerweh potters their own guild regulations. In 1719 and 1756 this was renewed. The guild initially consisted of eight master potters, Wilhelm Simons, Heinrich Kuckertz, Wilhelm Kuckertz, Göddärt Freins, Laurens Freins, Wilhelm Freins, Henrich Freins and Peter Courth. Together they were allowed to burn 21 stoves a year. In 1804 15 masters are led. Under Prussian rule, the guild regulations were amended in 1823. The guild now has 16 master potters who are allowed to drive 37 ½ ovens per year. On February 28, 1870, the Langerweh potters founded a pottery association whose statute replaced the traditional guild rules. The association had 12 members who were allowed to burn 41 stoves per year.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the production of large inlay pots, so-called bears, gained supraregional importance.
A (negative connotation) term for Langerweher residents / citizens was (and still is today) 'Baarenbäcker'.
In 1888 there were still three master potters working in Langerwehe. These are known by name as Gottfried Kuckertz, Johann Josef Kurth and Peter Hubert Kurth. Only two of these workshops are still active after the First World War. One was run by Jakob Kuckertz until the business was closed in 1972. After 1907, Jakob Kuckertz only made flower pots. The second workshop was run by the brothers Edmund and Gottfried Kuckertz. They gave up the production of the traditional brown Langerweher stoneware and produced blue-gray goods in the style of the Westerwald stoneware . After Karl Rennertz married into the company in 1921, production gradually shifted to devotional objects , holy water vessels and nativity figurines. The Kuckertz & Rennertz pottery is still there today in the "Uhlhaus".
Technology and spectrum of shapes
The range of shapes used by Langerweher stoneware production consists of largely unadorned utility and storage vessels. The vessel types known from Langerwehe do not differ significantly from contemporaneous forms of other pottery centers in the Rhineland. In particular, the influence of Raeren and Aachen can be seen.
In addition, Langerwehe manufactured ceramic objects for the needs of pilgrims who were on the journey to the shrine to Aachen . Canteens, pilgrim horns and pilgrim sticks are known.
Langerweher cup
Langerweher cups are form-characteristic vessels from the Langerweher production of the 14th and 15th centuries. Vessels of this type were also made in Aachen, Raeren and South Limburg during this period, but are not found in the range of Siegburg stoneware potters. Due to their characteristics and well-stratified finds, they provide a basis for a detailed chronology of Langerweh ceramics.
The name Langerweher cups include biconical, usually two or more-handled cups with a bulbous body. The sweeping central zone is fluted or emphasized by ridges. The shape draws in towards the edge and foot, creating a double-conical impression. The foot itself is made as a wave foot. One variant of the shape has a spout attached, partly with a sieve insert, instead of a second handle.
Well-dated finds indicate that Langerweh cups were made in Langerwehe before the middle of the 14th century. In 1999, a coin treasure was discovered that was found during excavations in a beguinage in Kortrijk . The coins were deposited in a cup made in Langerweh and buried in 1382.
In the late 15th century, the gothic Langerweher cups were replaced by funnel neck cups in the Renaissance style. However, the form is apparently taken up again in the 16th century, as for example the painting Market woman with a vegetable stand by Pieter Aertsen from 1567 shows.
Potty pot
Pötz jugs are large jugs for water or oil that were in use in the 16th and 17th centuries. They have an oval body that narrows towards the foot. The stand ring indicates a wave base. The narrow neck has a protruding, strongly profiled lip with a snout. On the back there is a strap handle between the lip and the vessel shoulder. External rotating grooves cover the body. The neck is smooth, but can occasionally wear beard mask pads (see Bartmannkrug ).
Baare
Baaren, also known as Schilderbaare or popularly known as Schelderbaaren , Schelderdöppe or cap pots , are large club-shaped storage vessels or insertion vessels for storing food, especially sauerkraut. The body is dark gray and has a dark brown engobe. The early vessels have a funnel-shaped lip and two handles just below the rim. The ground rests on a so-called claw foot or crown foot. This stand ring, based on a medieval wave base, is characteristic of stoneware vessels from Langerwehe. Another significant feature is a surrounding light band along the center of the vessel. This was created during engobing , in which the leather-hard vessel was dipped into the engobe mixture with the top and then the bottom before firing so that the median remained free.
The bears carry two, three or no medallion supports (signs) over their shoulders, the number of medallions reflecting the capacity of the bears. Vessels with three medallion supports have a capacity of 30 liters, Baaren with two medallions approx. 25 liters. Kleine Baaren did not receive such conditions.
During the First World War , the traditional Baaren shape was abandoned and replaced by a similar type that mimics an economically more successful shape from the Belgian pottery center Bouffioulx . This Belgian shape ( pots á beurre ) differs from the traditional Baarenform through a brown engobe applied over the entire surface. The claw foot has been replaced by a smooth standing ring and the collar lip by a beaded edge. In the Belgian version, the capacity is indicated by an exact liter. This product was withdrawn from the product range around 1924 after a decade without replacement.
Maple horn
- see Pilgerhorn
Aachhorns are wind instruments made of hard-fired earthenware that were made for pilgrims in Langerwehe in the 14th to 15th centuries.
The approximately 25 to 40 cm long horns were pulled on the turntable and shaped by hand with a knife, so that a polygonal cross-section was created. At the top of the horn, two hand-molded eyelets for attaching a carrying cord or a strap have been attached. Otherwise, aachhorns were usually undecorated. In the area of the sound mouth they had a yellowish to green lead glaze .
Firing aids
A by-product of the Langerweh stoneware production and the neighboring production from Hohenbusch are ring-shaped firing aids. der Steinzeugbaaren The flat bulging rings were supposed to prevent the sensitive spikes of the crown feet from sticking, which enabled these vessels, which were traditionally made from the 16th to the early 20th century, to stand securely in the clay floor of the storage cellar.
Research history and museum
Due to the fact that the range of shapes in Langerweh's stoneware production only includes unadorned utility ceramics with no handicraft significance, these products rarely found their way into the art trade or collections and received little attention in research. An article by J. Wiechers in the Dürener Anzeiger 1908 forms the first fundamental publication on Langerweh ceramics. Wiechers owned an extensive private collection that was lost before the Second World War. Also based on a private collection, an article by Josef Schwarz appeared in the magazine of the Aachener Geschichtsverein in 1937, which was reprinted in 1984 by the Langerwehe Pottery Museum . In 1977 John Gilbert Hurst presented the first systematic evaluation of Langerweher goods from the late Middle Ages based on finds in the ground .
In 1977 and 1980 the LVR Office for Ground Monument Preservation in the Rhineland carried out excavations near pottery kilns in Langerwehe. The results of these archaeological investigations have so far been presented only sparsely in the form of preliminary reports.
The Langerwehe Pottery Museum houses an extensive collection of Langerweh stoneware and thus provides an insight into daily life in late medieval and modern households in Central Europe.
literature
- John G. Hurst: Langerwehe Stoneware of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Ancient monuments and their interpretation. London 1977.
- John G. Hurst, David S. Neal, HJE van Beuningen: Pottery produced and traded in north - west Europe 1350 - 1650. Rotterdam Papers VI. A contribution to medieval archeology. The Hague 1986. pp. 184-190.
- Gisela Reineking von Bock: stoneware. Decorative Arts Museum of the City of Cologne. Cologne 1986. pp. 60f.
- Josef Schwarz: The Langerweh pottery trade in the past. Revised reprint from the magazine of the Aachener Geschichtsverein, born in 1937, volume 58. Langerwehe Pottery Museum 1984.
- Burchard Sielmann: Stoneware from Langerwehe. In: German stoneware of the 17th-20th centuries Century. Amounts for ceramics. German Ceramic Museum 1980. pp. 26–33.
- Hans-Georg Stephan : "The Development and Production of Medieval Stoneware in Germany." In: P. Davey, R. Hodges: Ceramics and Trade: The Production and Distribution of Later Medieval Pottery in North-West Europe. 1983, p. 111.
- Ingeborg Unger: The art of German stoneware. Collection Karl and Petra Amendt and the Krefeld art museums. Krefeld 2013. pp. 28, 118f.
- J. Wiechers: The pottery of Langerwehe. In: Dürener Anzeiger 178/179, 1908.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hurst et al. 1986, p. 184.
- ↑ Schwarz 1984, p. 26.
- ^ Wiechers 1908.
- ↑ Thomas Höltken, Bernd Steinbring: Biconical stoneware cups from the 14th to 15th centuries. Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 32, Heft 3 2002. pp. 447–455.
- ↑ Höltgen 2002. p. 451.
- ↑ Höltgen 2002. p. 449.
- ↑ Philippe Despriet, Tito Goddeeris, Luk Beekmans: Kortrijk 1382. De muntschat uit het Begijnenhof. Archeological and historical monographs of Zuid-West-Vlanderen 19. Archeologische Stichting voor Zuid-West-Vlaanderen, Kortrijk 1999. P. 7f.
- ^ Lutz Jansen: Aachen pilgrims in Upper Franconia. A remarkable ceramic find from the late Middle Ages from Bamberg. Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 25, 4, 1995. S. 424.
- ^ Heinrich Freitag, Burchard Sielmann: The van der Zander pottery family. Competition for Langerwehe. Rheinisches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde 24, 1982. P. 93–126: P. 100 Fig. 13, ring-shaped burning aid.
- ^ Wiechers 1908.
- ↑ Schwarz 1984, p. 7.
- ↑ Schwarz 1984
- ↑ Hurst 1977.
- ↑ Schwarz 1984, note 8.
